In-base Menu Buttons

Current: Buttons on menus like soldier characteristics, on the build buttons for Engineering and Foundry, on arrow buttons for Gray Market all seem to be "touchy" in that you have to hover over just the right spot to engage the button. For soldier attributes and Engineering/Foundry buttons it seems the clicking area hovers slightly up and right. Also, the right-pointing menu buttons all shift left or right when going from 9 to 10 or 10 to 9 quantity.

Suggestions: Improve the clicking area of the button and set the buttons so they don't move as the number of digits in the quantity changes.

Situation Room layout

Current: The Situation Room menu at the top drops down and covers the UK and Russia panic levels.

Suggestions: Allow the menu to fold up and hide. Move the menu elsewhere on the screen to fit in with the rest of the Situation Room.

Mission Control zoom-out

Current: Right clicking while in the "scan" view takes you out of Mission Control, first by rotating to the flat side-on view and then by zooming out to the rest of the base. If you click on another facility's menu button before the camera starts zooming straight backward from the Globe, it seems to cancel and rotate back into the Globe. This only happens with Engineering and the Barracks.

Suggestions: Don't show the other facility's buttons until the rotation is complete and zoom out begins. Fix code to allow a quick click while rotating before the zoom out. Remind players to be patient.

Mission prep

Current: When you go to the Hangar to prep for a mission, it's harder to click around and view your soldiers or change their loadout. For example, you might have to edit the chosen soldier's loadout to remove a special item, click back out and remove that soldier, click back into the list to choose the soldier you want, edit their loadout, and then click back out to the squad. You could click all the way back out to the barracks, do all your editing, and then go back through Mission Control to the mission prep and eventually the hangar's launch mission screen.

Suggestions: Make the barracks mechanics usable for mission prep. I'd like to be able to scroll through all my soldiers in their loadout screen, move items around to the ones I'm taking on the mission, back out only a click or two, and be ready to launch mission. It would also be nice because I could see their abilities and choose which soldiers to mix and match with relative ease rather than have to either memorize their individual builds or keeping going all the way back to the Barracks.

Suggestion: Allow the player to switch to Engineering and back again, without having to go through Mission Control. Manufacturing one extra item for a mission shouldn't take so many clicks.

New maps

A farm like the old XCOM. A multi-story building with many levels and stairways (could be a good VIP rescue map).

Building animations out of sync

Current: The same building type has identical animations, making it look very unreal.

Suggestions: Could make the animations out of sync.

Watching the Ant Farm

Current: It is not possible to zoom in to some building types.

Suggestions: Allow the above.

Soldiers

Randomize the soldier's stats, which would make the player "search" for the perfect squad.

The Second Wave option "Hidden Potential" does this

Ability to send wounded soldiers in the battle with penalties based on their wounds.

Small bonuses for soldiers fighting within the borders of their country of origin.

Add a Will bonus for killing aliens or surviving missions. (Current mechanics allow no way to replenish lost Will once a soldier has reached Colonel rank.)

Allow me to recruit soldiers by class once I get New Guy. Better yet, let me decide the classes of my rookies once they level up.

Better Soldier top menu: instead of just name, rank, and class, also displays stats (and that both top and individual soldier menu also shows move). Allow to organize by stat and/or class. Batch dismissal/multi-select, instead of dismissal by individually going into every soldier's 'page'.

Allow Snipers and Heavy to use the Assault Rifle, so that you can have a sniper who does not have squad sight or snapshot, so you can get them promoted easier.

Allow an option to create and save custom Hero Units

Replayability

More alien base assaults.
More alien UFO types.
Interrogating aliens gives UFOpedia entries on each different UFO type - Like the original game.
All aliens can be captured for interrogation one way or another - Like the original game (whether you get anything useful out of it is another matter...).
Different textures for each map, so even if the same map is used in different games, the skins make it appear different. This would go a long way to customising each map to the country that it's in, instead of always the same.
Having multiple endings.
Being able to reduce panic in countries that have pulled out of the XCOM project.
Selling items made by engineers.
More things to research (i.e. better accuracy, faster engines, turret for firestorm).
Having more than one Firestorm (sending out multiple squads on abduction missions).
Having your base assaulted by aliens.
More options of things to do with live captured aliens (mind control them for more info, or brainwash/re-educate for use in your barracks).
Sponsoring XCOM partnerships in other countries (freeing you up to handle other things). Send them soldiers/armor/$$$ to get them started.
Have multiple bases.
Cyrogenically freezing dead soldiers (for possible revival later).
Expansion Pack - Assaulting enemy homeworld

Thin Men and Council Missions

As you get further into the game, the Thin Men just get to easy on Council Missions with their LPRs, so make it so that they slowly progress up to Heavy Plasmas, or maybe the normal Plasma Rifle.